Initial thoughts on Kansas City’s deal with the Royals
The Lease, Development Agreement and Funding Agreement each define what happens if litigation voids the deal differently: one treats a...
Savannah’s zoning rewrite is a blueprint for other cities
Housing affordability is usually discussed as a spending problem, solved with subsidies, tax credits or public-private deals. Savannah's proposal is...
Data Centers Can Fund a City’s Future — But Only If Cities Don’t Pay for Them Twice
A facility that pays ordinary commercial property taxes, on infrastructure a company builds with its own capital, is a genuine...
Texas won the data center boom. Now comes the bill
Texas does not need to choose between subsidizing data centers and stopping them. It can require developers to provide credible...
London’s housing crisis is a warning about the power to say no
Discretionary review creates a different problem: uncertainty after the fact. A project may appear acceptable under existing plans, but developers...
Tax subsidies should have a test they can fail
Before approving a subsidy, lawmakers should identify the public purpose, establish measurable criteria, require the necessary data, provide for independent...
The World Cup may have boosted spending. That isn’t the same as economic growth.
The early evidence described by The Wall Street Journal supports a narrower and still positive conclusion: The World Cup brought...
Don’t Abandon the Housing Cure
The renewed interest in rent control, however, weakens that focus on addressing the problem by trying to manage the effects.
What do cities get for record spending?
High spending does not automatically produce high performance. Residents care less about the size of a budget than whether streets...
Office conversions are becoming a form of industrial policy
Cities are no longer simply seeking to attract new employers or subsidize major projects. They are attempting to reshape entire...
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